


Just a Sitting Down in the Shower Day

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Spencer's Criminal Minds One-Shots [12]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, HotchReid - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Seasonal Affective Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27852078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: Winter has arrived. Aaron went off his Lexapro cold turkey, and it's starting to show. Spencer needs to figure out why.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Series: Spencer's Criminal Minds One-Shots [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940851
Comments: 7
Kudos: 100





	Just a Sitting Down in the Shower Day

**Author's Note:**

> For my 1.2k follower celebration! Follow my tumblr @thefandomlesbian for more HotchReid feels.

Spencer can smell the bad day coming on with the dull pain in his knee, the sudden arthritic weakness, the shift in barometric pressure outside, the weather forecast telling him the chances of snow showers. Parting the curtains, he peers outside and looks at the dark sky, the white flakes sharp against the navy backdrop. He adjusts the wrinkles in his pajamas. “Aaron?”

Aaron lies in the bed from which Spencer just rose. He doesn’t move. His whole body is tight, breath bated.  _ He’s awake. _ But he ignores Spencer’s voice. Spencer isn’t surprised. 

Of course they have bad days. 

They have days where Spencer needs his cane. They have days where Jack throws tantrums and breaks things and screams about how much he misses his mother and wishes Aaron wouldn’t have replaced her. They have days where Aaron buries his head in his hands and tries to keep from weeping until they get home late at night where he can plant his face in Spencer’s chest and cry in a silent peace. 

And this day, Spencer knows, was preceded by vapid looks, a vanishing smile, quivering hands, and the unopened bottle of Lexapro in the medicine cabinet that Aaron hasn’t touched since he brought it home from the pharmacy. 

Spencer kicks up the heat and runs his hand through Aaron’s hair, planting a kiss on his temple. “I’ll be back soon.” Someone has to get Jack to school, and it isn’t going to be the one lying limp in bed pretending to be asleep to try to avoid the necessary confrontation with his own sadness. 

Spencer remembers that time, that one bad day, he hiked off into the woods with the team, and once he made it to the burial site, his knee caved underneath him, and Aaron picked him up onto his back and carried him all the way back to the Suburban.

Some days, Aaron needs Spencer to carry him, too. 

Spencer cooks Jack’s favorite breakfast and then rouses him, feeds him, ensures he brushes his teeth and clothes himself, and then he takes him to school. 

“Why’s Dad not here?” 

“Your dad isn’t feeling very well today.”

“Oh. Is he sick?” Jack looks hopeless in the rearview mirror of Spencer’s car, and Spencer hopes it won’t be a bad day for him, too--he can handle Jack having a breakdown or Aaron having a breakdown, but both of them? He doesn’t have enough hands for that.

Spencer tilts his head. “Sort of. Not the kind of sick you can catch, though.” Jack frowns at him, perplexed. “His brain is sick. It makes him sad and tired. It happens to some people in the winter, because the sunshine gives us vitamins, and without those vitamins, we can’t cope as well.” 

Aaron has a long list of diagnoses, and seasonal affective disorder is on that list. Spencer doesn’t think it’s his right to share those things with Jack, though. 

“Will you make him happy again?”

Jack asks it like it’s easy. “I’m going to try,” Spencer says, “but he may need to go to the doctor.” If Aaron doesn’t want to take the Lexapro, he needs to take something else. The listlessness, loss of appetite, empty expression, distance between them--that’s not like him, that’s not the Aaron he married. Aaron loves to cook and always smiles at him and will sneak up behind him to grab his waist and spin him around in the kitchen and kiss him and play with his hair until he falls asleep. Aaron would never flinch away from Spencer’s touch or refuse to meet his eyes or mumble about having already eaten when Spencer knew damn well he hadn’t. It’s the depression talking, not Aaron. 

Spencer drops Jack off at school, and then he goes home, where the furnace rumbles and spills warmth into the cold space. He draws all of the curtains closed to try to keep the warmth from escaping, and then he tiptoes to Aaron’s bedside. The mug of coffee he left on the bedside table hasn’t been touched and has grown cold. Aaron’s jaw is tight. His arms are crossed across his chest, hands in his armpits, like he couldn’t warm them up enough under the blankets. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Spencer places a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron’s whole body twitches, like he expects to be slapped, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “Aaron.” His jaw shifts sideways as he grinds his teeth. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” 

He sucks in a deep breath through his nose, measured and full. “I’m fine.” The two words grate out from between his lips. Spencer caresses his face, curling his fingers into Aaron’s hair. 

“I know that’s not true.”

“I have a headache. I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” Aaron reaches for the covers to tuck himself in deeper, as if to avoid Spencer’s scrutinizing gaze, but Spencer is sitting on the blankets and won’t relinquish them. 

He traces Aaron’s eyebrow with his thumb. “If you eat something, I’ll bring you some ibuprofen. You shouldn’t take it on an empty stomach.”

“Not hungry,” Aaron grates. His voice is short; he’s losing his patience with Spencer’s antics, if  _ antics _ is the right word for Spencer trying to break through the prickly shell Aaron builds around himself when his world comes crashing down. 

Spencer, though, Spencer is unflappable when it comes to Aaron’s moods. “You didn’t eat lunch or dinner yesterday.”

“Wasn’t hungry then, either.”

“You have a headache because your body is trying to tell you you’re hungry.”

“I have a headache because this pain in the ass won’t let me rest,” Aaron snaps. Spencer drags his thumb over Aaron’s cheekbone and waits for his words to register, the sharpness to his tone, the anger that dwells inside of Aaron burbling up to the surface all at once and finding itself an easy target. That’s fine with Spencer. He can take it. “I’m sorry,” Aaron mumbles, a shameful afterthought. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” 

“I know,” Spencer promises. He shifts the blankets and wriggles himself beneath them, sitting up with his back on the headboard as Aaron tries to make space for him. “You haven’t been taking your Lexapro.” Silence. “How long?” 

Dark eyes flick up to him and then dart away. “Since before the honeymoon.” 

_ Four months. _ It’s been longer than Spencer suspected. “Why?” 

Aaron hesitates to answer, but then he says, “Cialis.” 

_ Oh. _ “You never minded taking the Cialis before,” Spencer rationalizes quietly. It certainly didn’t bother Spencer--whatever Aaron needed to get himself ready to perform was his business. Lexapro caused a reduction in sex drive, and they had the tools they needed to account for it, as far as Spencer was concerned. “What changed?” 

Aaron averts his eyes and then closes them. “I…” He closes his mouth, and then he opens it again. “I didn’t want to need the Cialis on our honeymoon. I love you. I’m attracted to you. That should be enough.” 

“So you stopped taking the Lexapro?”

“I didn’t need the Cialis, did I?” 

“I don’t know if you’ve realized, but we don’t have a lot of sex when you’re miserably depressed, either,” Spencer reminds him gently. He takes Aaron’s big head off of the pillows and places it in his lap, and Aaron snuggles there like a kitten against its mother’s belly. “Are you thinking about hurting yourself?” Aaron shakes his head. “Are you telling the truth?” He nods. 

There was a time when Aaron’s answers to those questions were different, but Spencer trusts his word. “I’m sorry,” Aaron whispers. 

“Don’t be,” Spencer scolds quietly. “I want you to be comfortable with yourself, and with us, and the medications you take… But it doesn’t make a difference to me whether or not you take Cialis, or Lexapro, or anything else. I just want you to be safe and happy.” 

A dim flash of red rises to Aaron’s cheeks. “It makes me feel impotent,” he admits. “I’m not old enough to need it.” 

Spencer cards a hand through his hair. “Then you’ll go back to the psychiatrist and try another antidepressant.” He traces the wrinkles in Aaron’s forehead with his fingertips. “Will you get up and eat some breakfast if I call them?” 

Aaron’s eyes hang heavy. He’s lain in this bed for over ten hours, but he looks just as exhausted as he did when he lay beside Spencer last night. “Not right now…” He exhales through his mouth. 

“What can I do?” It’s an important question to ask, one Spencer sometimes forgets--Spencer knows by now that he tends to think he has all of the answers, and that is rarely ever the case. 

Dark eyes flicker back up to him. “I just want you to hold me for a little while… if that’s okay.” 

Spencer smiles. “Of course.” He lies down beside Aaron, and Aaron places his head on Spencer’s chest, allowing Spencer’s skinny arms to wrap around his body and hold him in place while the warmth from the blankets wreaths around both of them. 

It’s a bad day, sure. But they have yet to encounter a bad day they can’t overcome together. 


End file.
